Exercise After Cancer

After cancer treatments my body was physically depleted. How can you exercise when you’re mentally worn and lack energy? To ease back into exercising, I kickstarted my mind and body into shape through the wonderful YMCA Livestrong Program, which I wrote about here. If you’ve had cancer, even years ago, please take advantage of this program. It’s designed for cancer survivors and their caretakers, and FREE for four months.

Once that program ended, I continued on with cardio and weight training on upper and lower body machines. The routine becomes mundane after awhile, and you want to keep moving forward. What do you do?

Enter Chair Yoga.

3 Reasons for Chair Yoga

Here’s why this is the perfect exercise to jump start your new exercise regimen:

1) You’re part of an entire class of people doing the same thing. You’re all working toward the same goal. In our class, we do simple stretching, bending, and lifting right in the chair. Then, we get up and do poses such as warrior one, two and three, tall mountain, airplane, and chair squats.

2) Yoga is gentle on the joints versus the weight machines. If you can’t bend down too far, don’t do it! Our instructor told us her class is not typical of a chair yoga class. Since we’re a stronger bunch, she has us doing more regular yoga moves and balancing than would be normal. You do what you can, and leave the rest.

3) Your body will tone up all over and become strong.

And remember, if you’re a senior you should be concerned about weight bearing exercises to prevent osteoporosis, fractures from falling or dizziness, and keeping your joints limber for better movement. Seniors have many health issues, and I believe this is the perfect exercise for them as I shared 7 Reasons Why in this Constant Content article.

Chair Yoga Classes

This gentle exercise is the one for you if you’ve been couch surfing or recovering from a serious illness. There are usually classes in your hometown if you google chair yoga, along with your town and state. If you have a YMCA, check there first. If not, check out other gyms or local classes.

I’ve been attending a chair yoga class two times per week. My instructor is a tiny little Asian woman who has not an ounce of fat on her entire body. I may have more in my little finger. 😉 She’s funny, cute and very limber. She’ll do push ups on one arm while we’re trying to keep up in our chair.

One of the participants is a woman who hasn’t exercised in years, and was concerned about Alzheimer’s running in her family. Read about the correlation between exercise and beating Alzheimer’s on this New York Times article.

You Tube Videos

If you live too remotely but have a computer, you can check out these videos to get started:

 

To sum up, this exercise is fun, easy on the joints, and really works! Exercise is great for mind, body, and spirit. No matter where you start, just get started!

What is your favorite exercise and why? I’d love to hear from you!

Penelope Silvers is a freelance writer, author,
and radio host of Penelope’s Book Chat on Blog
Talk Radio. She lives simply and sanely on Florida’s
beautiful nature coast.